Director Charlie Matthau is looking to have a big week next week. With the Tribeca Film Festival starting up in New York City, Matthau's latest, an adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel Freaky Deaky, is set to make its world premiere. If the movie is a smash hit than the big question that is going to be asked of the filmmaker repeatedly will be, "What's next?" The good thing is that he's apparently already set up an answer.
According to Deadline, Matthau is now attached to direct the comedy Sugar Shack. The project is based on an original screenplay by Kevin Fleming and Rob Janas and centers on a male stripper. The story is set in Racine, Wisconsin and follows said stripper as he must both face down a rival and save his town from a corrupt politician. The setting was chosen because Racine is home to "one of the only uncensored male venues in the world." Matthau has described the tale as a cross between The Full Monty and The Hangover and is getting ready to start production in September.
Matthau has been directing since the late 80s, but his projects are few and far between. Making mostly comedies, the filmmakers first project was Doin' Time on Planet Earth back in 1988, which he followed with The Grass Harp in 1995. Freaky Deaky is the first project he's helmed since 2005's Her Minor Thing, which starred Estella Warren, Rachel Dratch, Kathy Griffin, Ivana Milicevic and Victoria Jackson. His latest his a 1974-set crime comedy about a group of bomb-making radicals and features an unusual ensemble that includes Christian Slater, Crispin Glover, Michael Jai White, Billy Burke, and Andy Dick.
